My heart for media and the web started in Video back in 1999. While I understand this is an expensive area for churches to get into, and the number of churches able to afford live broadcast production tech is even slimmer, it is still awesome to check out.
I came across the NewTek Tricaster (cost is $5000) on the wired blog and its claim to fame is that it can take a whole production truck and compact it down into one box. That’s it. The interface looks super intuitive and easy to use (the wired blog mentioned training in of volunteers in as little as 30 minutes).
Form factor is very small and would easily fit in a rack mount somewhere near the audio equipment for the church. It does real-time chroma keying, lower thirds, and so on. Also with a $1000 attachment you can do slow-mo (the action sports videographer in me just jumped a little bit). Imagine preaching with slow-mo instant replays!
I would have loved to have one of these back in the day when I ran the Midwest Skier Open every year. Probably could have gotten red bull to go in on the jumbo tron then. If only…
Never hurts to dream… Just sometimes keeps me from the work I should be doing.